{"id":231546,"date":"2010-01-26T10:30:43","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T15:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.epa.gov\/blog\/?p=1301"},"modified":"2010-01-26T10:30:43","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T15:30:43","slug":"radon-reflections-at-the-tools-for-schools-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/231546","title":{"rendered":"Radon Reflections at the Tools for Schools Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>January is National Radon Action Month, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/radon\/nram\/index.html\">NRAM<\/a>. Read more about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/radon\/\">EPA&#8217;s radon activities<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.epa.gov\/blog\/2009\/11\/05\/test-your-home-for-radon\/\">what others are doing<\/a> to reduce their radon exposure.<\/p>\n<p>Each year, EPA\u2019s Indoor Environments Division hosts an indoor air quality, or IAQ, symposium in Washington D.C. This year\u2019s 10th IAQ <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iaqsymposium.com\/agenda.html\">Tools for Schools<\/a> National Symposium took place January 14 to 16 \u2014 during National Radon Action Month. As a scientist for EPA\u2019s Center for Radon and Air Toxics, naturally I was delighted to have the opportunity to present radon information at the symposium.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1302\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.epa.gov\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/toolsforschools.jpg\" alt=\"Workgroup meeting at Indoor Air Quality Symposium\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\" \/>This year\u2019s symposium featured five school districts with specific IAQ design challenges. Each attendee played an integral role as a design team member, formulating strategies to help a school district improve IAQ management. As I interacted with teams, I discovered IAQ stakeholders in many forms: facilities managers, building technicians, nurses, principals, government and even parents. Despite their different roles, people were passionate for school health and worked together to produce excellent solutions in a short period of time.<\/p>\n<p>Discussions about radon were abundant at the symposium. While sipping my latte, a man started a conversation about radon in his school district. He whispered as if it were a secret, \u201cWe build <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/nrmrl\/pubs\/625r92016\/625r92016.pdf\">radon prevention<\/a> right into our new school designs.\u201d My eyes lit up so bright; I think I startled him, or maybe he thought I was going to hug him. The importance of preventing pollutants from entering a building is no secret; think about how vapor barriers, gutters and even window screens keep a number of pollutants safely out of the indoor environment.<\/p>\n<p>I overheard someone say, \u201cHow will they know if they don\u2019t test?\u201d I smiled and shook my head vigorously in agreement. Clearly this person had just grasped how important it is to test for radon. Just when I thought it couldn\u2019t get any better, three children were recognized during the National Radon <a href=\"http:\/\/sosradon.org\/\">Poster Contest<\/a> awards luncheon, and EPA\u2019s Administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, touted the benefits of recognizing radon in school IAQ.<\/p>\n<p>As I reflect on activities at the symposium, it\u2019s clear that radon is certainly at the forefront of school IAQ management. My hope is that symposium attendees will share their reflections on the symposium here or blog about it on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.radonleaders.org\/\">radonleaders.org.<\/a> Please comment, reply and get your story out there.<\/p>\n<p><em>About the Author: Jani Palmer is a Physical Scientist in the Indoor Environments Division. She has been in the indoor air quality and industrial hygiene field for 10 years providing environmental consulting and services for school districts, industry, and public agencies.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January is National Radon Action Month, or NRAM. Read more about EPA&#8217;s radon activities and what others are doing to reduce their radon exposure. Each year, EPA\u2019s Indoor Environments Division hosts an indoor air quality, or IAQ, symposium in Washington D.C. This year\u2019s 10th IAQ Tools for Schools National Symposium took place January 14 to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}